Melissa Etheridge

Iconic folk-rock songstress Melissa Etheridge grew up in Leavenworth, Kansas. Etheridge has been making music since she first picked up a guitar at eight years-old and played in country groups throughout her teens in her home state of Kansas. Winner of two Grammy Awards for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female and an Academy Award for her song “I Need to Wake Up” from the documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

Since her first release in 1988, the singer-songwriter is also a powerful icon and activist in the gay and lesbian community after coming out in 1993. Now Etheridge is promoting the release of her fourteenth album, Fourth Street Feeling, titled after 4th street in her home town. The album is due out September 4, and she plays four songs for us live in this interview with David Dye.